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Both Ghawar And Cantrell Oil Fields Are Past Peak

Elaine Meinel Supkis

We are rapidly approaching the global Hubbert Oil Peak. The world's two biggest remaining oil fields, Cantrell in Mexico and Ghawar in Saudia Arabia, are now very obviously declining. This has many ramifications we Americans are not at all ready to address.

The resulting graph is extremely striking, I think. The four different sources all estimate Saudi production slightly differently - they fluctuate in different ways month to month, and disagree over the absolute level (that last may be differences in exactly what is defined as oil). However, the regressions make clear that all four sources are in strong agreement about the nature of the decline. The slopes of the lines are very similar.

The implied decline rate through the year is 8% ± 0.1%. (Note that the year on year decline from 2005 to 2006 will only be about half that, as the decline only began at the beginning of 2006). As far as I know, there are no known accidents or problems that would explain any restrictions on oil supply, and the Saudis themselves have maintained publicly that their production is unproblematic and they intend to increase it.

We Hubbert Oil Peak watchers have been expecting this. Seven years ago, many of us thought this would happen by 2010. But the Saudis beat us to it by recklessly pumping oil for political reasons, mostly to keep Bush in power and gas prices in America briefly down. Recently, they claimed they were increasing their pumping to punish Iran and drop world oil prices only this didn't happen at all: if prices went down a few pennies, it was only because oil futures buyers anticipate a global recession or even depression.

Way back in the early 1970's, Americans were much more alarmed about the Hubbert Oil Peak: we reached it back then. Even with the subsequent Alaskan discoveries, the decline has continued. The Gulf has produced a good amount of oil but not enough to make up the shortfall and hurricanes have crippled more than one pumping facility there.

On December 8, 2006, Klotzbach's team issued its first extended-range forecast for the 2007 season, predicting above-average activity (14 named storms, 7 hurricanes, 3 of Category 3 or higher).[1]
The team predicted a high potential for at least one major hurricane to directly impact the United States: the forecast indicated a 64% chance of at least one major hurricane striking the U.S. mainland, which included a 40% chance of at least one major hurricane strike on the East Coast of the United States including the Florida peninsula, and a 40% chance of at least one major hurricane strike on the Gulf Coast of the United States from the Florida Panhandle westward. In addition, the potential for major hurricane activity in the Caribbean is above average. Klotzbach's team expects El Niño to dissipate by the active portion of the season.

I am fairly certain we will see some heroic, big storms this summer. So far, this winter, all the storms have been quite violent and really, really big. Covering much of the nation! Wild weather, a number of people killed by tornadoes, ice, blizzards and other hazards. During all this, the very, very warm Gulf simply warmed up even more. And it will sizzle this summer. We could easily lose much of the remainder of our oil pumping facilities and quite a few refineries.

The Oil Drum is an important webpage. It contains a great deal of fascinating information one will not see in the mainstream news media. This last week, the entire global system of financing and finegalling nearly collapsed and only by having the Japanese bouy everything up by deliberately weakening the yen and increasing the strength of the dying dollar, did we not see total chaos.

But the underlying fact that drives all this is still very much here: the world's biggest, oldest oil fields are now past their prime and rapidly dying starting this last summer!

Saudi oil fields affect Europe much more than the USA. For a variety of reasons, we tend to get our own oil closer to home: Mexico and Venezuela as well as Canada. So the Saudi decline doesn't hit us nearly as hard as the Cantrell decline.

The second-largest producing oil complex in the world is Mexico's giant Cantarell oil field, in the Gulf of Mexico off the Yucatan. The field was discovered in 1976, supposedly after a fisherman named Cantarell reported an oil seep in the Campeche Bay.

Exploration yielded surprising results. It turned out that Mexico's richest oil field complex was created 65 million years ago, when the huge Chicxulub meteor impacted the Earth at the end of the Mesozoic Era. Some 10 years earlier, Luis and Walter Alverex had suggested in their independent studies that an impact meteor was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. Scientists now believe that the Chicxulub meteor impact was the culprit that killed the dinosaurs, as well as the cause for creating the Cantrell oil field.

We tend to forget that oil is the result of suffocating deaths of living things. If they die natural deaths, they tend to turn to soil but if there are upheavals, then great bodies of oil are created from the terrible mess. Because these oil fields are the end result of often tragic circumstances, the entire planet does NOT have oil underground: it is very periodic and basically, unusual. Anyone imagining oil will pop up pretty much everywhere is nuts.

MEXICO CITY, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Mexican state-run oil monopoly Pemex confirmed a gloomier forecast on Wednesday for fast-declining oil output at its aging Cantarell field, but said from now on it could keep total crude production steady.

Chief Executive Jesus Reyes Heroles said the company's official production estimate for Cantarell was for an average of 1.526 million barrels per day during 2007, down 15 percent from an average 1.788 million bpd last year.

15% in one year? Sounds like the numbers for hedge fund rises! Americans see the price of gasoline going up but they are not restive because this isn't front-page news anywhere except on the web. National Geographic has been in the fore-front, trying hard to convince people about the seriousness of all this but aside from them, it is 'silence is golden' time.

We just witnessed the obvious theft of power in Mexico whereby the USA assisted the ruling elites to basically steal an election right along the same lines as such thefts have happened here. Unrest is great and tremendous violence and open murder has been used by the brat put in power. He is going to pump Mexico dry and work with the blasted International Monetary Fund to put all the loot into their reserve accounts to play hedge fund games with the resulting monies.

This is from the IMF report. They are forcing Mexico to beef up their reserve funds...almost to the same level as the reckless, consumerist USA! Mexico is a much smaller country with less population and is supposed to be 'poorer' than the USA yet they must have in reserve, the same funds as the reputed 'Richest Country In the World'????

As I explore these numbers and crunch the data, it takes the breath away. I know America is the most hubristic, arrogant country on earth but the hypocricy and venality is still astonishing. It is also tremendously embarrassing.

Bush is touring South America where they are ALL being forced to 'save money' as we spend like fiends. And riots are greeting our monster/king, Bush. They are really violent, the fury is not below the surface but right in our faces! And of course, our media will pretend no one can figure out why we are so unpopular.

BEIJING, March 8 -- South China's Guangdong Province is in discussions with the central government over a proposal to build strategic oil reserve bases in the region.

The tanks will be built in Guangdong's Zhanjiang city and Huizhou city, as Huang Huahua, the governor of the southern province said yesterday on the sidelines of the fifth session of the 10th National People's Congress.

Phase one of the project, to be completed in 2008, includes four strategic oil stockpiles with a total capacity of 16.2 million cubic meters.

China also issued a human rights report concerning our own crimes against not just humanity but Americans. It is rather amusing to read when one considers how lopsided our own reports are. And it is most revealing that the USA continues to badger and harrangue the rest of the world while we ignore the messes we are making.

And anyone dreaming we will leave ANY oil producing nation is nuts. The occupation of Iraq will be eternal, as far as our government is concerned. The only way to stop this is a revolt within the troops, a real possibility.

And the day the oil ceases in Saudi Arabia, the royals die. Bin Laden has explained all this. The aim is to bankrupt America and end the oil dependency. Also, the IMF has no statistics for Saudi Arabia. Nor Iraq. No surprize here.

Comments

New York City. Eight million souls. 50 Russian megatons. 500,000 years. The Big Green Lizards roll out of New Jersey in their shiny Buicks, coasting onward toward oblivion on all that high-test people-fat.

We need to start a new religion. Like Amish, only a little tougher. When I lived next to Canaan Mountain (Northwestern Connecticut), there was a tribe of Dukobours up there. Hardly anyone ever saw the Mad Duks. But they were not known for exaggerated civility. Time to write the Great Book. See:

«Sony is preparing to unveil a simulated reality world in which Playstation gamers can create a new life for themselves, complete with their own apartment, friends, movies, shopping and entertainment, bringing the reality of an actual matrix a step closer.»

We may have reached the peak of oilfield development, but that doesn't mean there isn't any left. And a decline in oil will probably lead to a transition to different forms of fuel - ethanol, for example, hydrogen (which is in a nascent stste just now), and processed coal. The US is the Saudi Arabia of coal - there is a shitload of it here.

Hydrogen - takes power to create (we can't "drill" for it). It stores and transports poorly and no current cars can run on it.

Ethanol/bio-diesel - probably the best bet but currently we create it from crops that are grown with large amounts of natural gas fertelizer and oil based pesticides. So as the price of growing the crop rises so does the price of the bio-fuel

Electricity - also a good bet. But once again it takes power from the grid that we are already using at capacity and would require a new infrastructure.

But the point is the days of "cheap" easily obtained and used oil are gone. Now look at the decline percentage - Cantrelle = 15%, Saudi Arabia = 8% North Sea = 8.5%. Now assuming you want to transition to a new fuel source - how fast can you do it?

is it a cut or an inability to deliver due to field decline? Ghawar has been on a water flood for years which makes me think the announced 10% cut is an inability to produce rather than a voluntary cut. Is Ghawar production ready to take the same type of cliff dive as Cantrell?